Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday October 28, 2015 @04:00PM
from the what's-in-a-name? dept.

itwbennett writes: A proposed class-action suit filed by 4 delivery drivers for the app-based Amazon Prime Now service alleges that the company misclassifies its workers as contractors when the terms the drivers follow 'fit many of the hallmarks that would classify them as employees,' according to Leonard Carder, the law firm representing the drivers. Among those terms: The drivers reported to and worked exclusively out of an Amazon warehouse, were scheduled to work fixed shifts during Amazon's Prime Now service hours, and were required to wear shirts and hats bearing the Amazon Prime Now logo and carry a smartphone preloaded with the app, according to the complaint.

Here in America we've based our entire quality of life on a social contract between employer and employee. If that breaks down then everything goes to shit. We're also a country whose legal system operates on presidence and not logic or reason. So once Amazon gets away with shirking their social and legal obligations to employees everyone else follows suit. The real world just isn't as simple as you want it to be...

Actually, we're getting closer to that wonderful time before we had the government looking out for the workers which started in the 40s. Just take a skim at how many incidents occurred in the past and how they diminished and changed past the 60s [wikipedia.org]. Looking at that, I think we've based our entire quality of life on some tenuous regulation by the government of business, and that is being whittled away, causing more and more companies thinking they can go back to the earlier higher short term profit models pre-regulation.

Note that as automation takes over more and more low-skilled jobs, that the labor market will continue to contract. There's going to be some seriously interesting things happening over the next 30-40 years, and it won't look like anything we have today.

The big issue with contract work is that you experience the ebbs and flow of the current market conditions immediately. If the market is good for employees (meaning full employment), then I have seen contract workers pull down wages that are better than full-timers. The problem right now is that the market is good for employers because there are so many people looking for work so they can get lower wages.

I can do that. You can probably do that. Someone without a good skillset, who went to a high school where less than half the kids graduated, cannot do that. Well, they can go to lots of employers but all the employers have the same crappy policies.

Last time we had lots of employers all treating they employees like disposable crap, we got unions. Think about that: there are many, many problems with unions, and most people (even their members) hate them. But they were considered a far lesser evil than the employers of the time. And unless the government gets involved and starts making companies behave, we're heading back towards unions.

So pick your poison: strong unions or strong government regulations. Because we're trying strong companies now, and they've proving to be a very bad choice for all but the most skilled.

Unless people act to stop it, we'll continue to whittle away the middle class, the economy will go from stagnation to deflation and eventual collapse as the only driving force in the economy evaporates.

As the economic differential spreads and grows the dollar will decline in value and collapse just like it does in so many banana republics where there is only a poor and ultra rich economic class.

The US economy is entirely based on the spending of the middle class and poor, this spending accounts for near 80% of the economy. The wealthy and upper middle class spend almost nothing in comparison. As middle class wages have declined due to a complete halt to wage growth so has their spending. The economic stagnation that has affected the country since the 2008 collapse is the direct result of this erosion of middle class spending power. Without an intervention by the government and a policy like the capital tax proposed by Thomas Piketty including a sharp increase in minimum wages this is almost an inevitable result.

Fortunately if the millennials stick to the policies they appear to be supporting now we'll reverse the political damage of the aging baby boomers before we have a catastrophic economic collapse but until that happens we'll only experience economic stagnation and erosion of middle class spending.

The thing is, you do not really have unions. You have something closer to a guild.In Belgium I can go to any of the three larger unions and join, regardless of where I work or what my profession is. There are also some smaller unions who are just in one company (e.g. rail) or in one sort of industry (e.g. teachers)

So in the end you have the choice of going to the union that you want.

Companies with more than 50 employees are forced to have a union representative by law. I also do not have to say if I am with

It is kind of like ObamaCare - it is for your ow good. So give us your money we will spend them for you.

Like Obamacare? So, you mean "cheaper than expected and working better than expected"? Fantastic! Sign me up.

I have a brother-in-law who has finally been able to get treatment for his high blood pressure because of the ACA. On the other hand, has there been a widely-publicized "Obamacare horror story" which has not been proven to be false? I assume there are a few actual horror stories; there always are in any complex system. But the fact that opponents have only picked fake horror stories says someth

As a conservative I hate the premise of Obamacare. Unfortunately it was necessary. If group plans had never been allowed this would not have happened. With me on disability insurance for my wife is subsidized and I pay $2.20 a month. No way could we afford the whole $660 monthly premium.

She is finishing her training to be a nurse so next year she will be paying a full premium when she gets a job. Personally I think medical care should be considered a utility and either be publicly owned or if private high

That's great. On the flip side, my premiums have gone up every year at a much higher rate than before obamacare. Additionally, working at an insurance company now, I am seeing many plans (including my own) do away with copays entirely and switch to co-insurance plans that don't pay until you hit some godawful deducatable.

Obamacare hurt a ton of people with increased cost in insurance, reduced wages, and reduced hours. ObamaCare was not the solution to the insurance problem - in fact, it has made it much

Oh, now that you're here, the CEO's job is to scrub public restrooms with a toothbrush, and you're required to provide your own brush. Also, the pay is in Zimbabwean dollars. Don't like it? Don't whine, you took the job!

When you use terms like "contractor" or "CEO" those terms are supposed to mean something. At least with "contractor" the government has decided by law what that means. I'm sure

This ruins things for all the people that DO like and prefer the contractor paradigm.

So, you're talking about a rare few set of people that have the luxury of preferring contractor work over more secure arrangements. The majority, also known as the Rest of Us, would rather see the contractor model DIAF and be nuked from orbit.

Contracting agencies have an overdue need to experience the fear that they have dispensed by virtue of contract renewals and blackballing. If they have to be sued to death, so be it. Let history know that they wrote their own death warrant by abusing their own position as intermediaries.

It is just fine if you don't want to work contracting....just don't, there are plenty of other jobs to be had and [ Inaccurate Libertarian Bromide Redacted ]. Why sign up and sue rather than just go somewhere else that hires you as a W2 user?

Force comes in more forms than your classical libertarian bromides. It also comes in the form of lopsided agreements and being able to pass down risk to people least able to handle it.

Microsoft got sued by contract temp workers, who called themselves "permatemps", mostly positions like entry-level QA and so forth. Some of these people were contracted for years at a time, but because they were contracted, didn't get benefits, of course. So, after the lawsuit was settled (which was lauded as a huge victory for those workers [nytimes.com]), to stay within the letter of the law, Microsoft simply laid off all temp workers for a minimum of three months after a year of employment, or else those people wouldn't qualify as "temp" anymore. Recently, the rules were changed to 18-months on / 6-months off.

Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for. Or at least, *how* you ask for it. Low-skilled workers don't exactly have a lot of collective bargaining power. They may end up with a worse deal than when they started.

But I'm starting to see it done in fairly high skill (sys admin, programming, etc) jobs. I know it's popular to look down on blue collar folks and all, but when they're done with them they're coming for you next. The dragon can eat the hobbit in one gulp and you didn't get very far when you tripped him...

Or you could mandate equal treatment of all workers. In my company in Australia there were plenty of permanent contractors. Some worked for contracting firms, others worked for themselves. They all had the same conditions, just the questions were who paid for them.

In the case of those who worked for themselves and contracted themselves out to the company they were still required by law to pay themselves annual leave, superannuation benefits, etc. Just because you're your own employee doesn't mean you get to

Also, contractors should expect to be paid more from their client than an equivalent salaried employee........specifically to offset the price of benefits (and taxes and whatever else) that aren't being taken care of. If they don't negotiate a good rate to cover these expenses, then that's on them. If they go through a contracting firm, that firm should be covering those same benefits for them or not taking a significant cut beyond a placement fee.

Then take away the cost-dodge incentive and replace it with one that has them trying to compete with a default of direct-hire FTE. It would at least go for the jugular for the staffing industry and those that depend on it as an HR weapon/cost-dodge.

That is, an individual cannot be required, as a condition of beginning/continuing work, to take anything that is not a direct-hire FTE job of indefinite time (read: neither agency nor temp/contract). Sell it as increased freedom and flexibility.

Actually, these people are *defending* the contractor status by calling out Amazon for abusing the classification in order to shaft what should be employees of their rightful employee perks. A job isn't a contract job just because the company says it is. It has to meet requirements. Taking your line of reasoning to the logical conclusion, if misclassified contractors never called these companies out (and instead, just took another job), then *every* company would eventually wise up and misclassify their employees as contractors.

When a company breaks the law, any contract you signed is non-binding.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck- it's a duck. It doesn't matter if you call it a contractor.

If amazon wants contractors then it needs to put the jobs up for bids, accept random contractors for a given job, be subject to occasional shortages, etc. Once it tries to "lock" the contractors into fixed hours and shifts- they are not contractors- they are employees.

Once it tries to "lock" the contractors into fixed hours and shifts- they are not contractors- they are employees.

Really? Having fixed hours/shift defines one as an employee? That is among the stupidest things I've read today.

These workers were interviewed by an outside firm, hired by an outside firm, submit time sheets to an outside firm, and cash paychecks from that same outside firm... Wearing an Amazon shirt at the request of your non-Amazon employer doesn't make you an Amazon employee - it just doesn't

You're making the mistake of looking at the corporate construct around these employees/contractors not the actual details of the job. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people are not misclassified as contractors due to corporate shenanigans. If the law had to examine all the shenanigans and they counted for anything at all then it wouldn't be very effective.

I don't know the details of the US rules, but we have similar rules here, known as IR35 since the tax structure is different. I've had to dea

It doesn't matter a bit who signs the pay check. What matters is who controls when, where, and how the work is done. Control is what matters under employment law.

If you contract with someone to have your house painted , they can hire helpers if they want to, they can use whatever tools they want, etc, and generally you pay for results- they get paid when the houee is painted. You don't care whether they work from 8AM to 3PM or noon to 8PM. The contract is "I pay $x,000, you get the house painted wit

This ruins things for all the people that DO like and prefer the contractor paradigm.

The "contractor paradigm" entails certain freedoms that an employee does not have. The employee signs them away for certain other benefits that come with the status as employee.Now, if you prefer to be a contractor that is fine, but in this Amazon construction you are not. You are just an employee, you signed away the freedoms, you still run the risks that come with being a contractor but you do not have the additional benefits that come with being an employee. But Amazon sticks a nice, shiny label "contractor" on it.

If you think this makes you a contractor, you are delusional. It just makes you naive and gullible.

This ruins things for all the people that DO like and prefer the contractor paradigm. Shit like this makes it harder for those that DO want to be contractors to get jobs, due to potential contract employers are afraid of sue happy idiots.

Amazon is calling these people "contractors" yet requiring they not work for anyone else. That's not how contracting works... it's pretty much the exact opposite of how contracting works.

Frankly, my mind boggles at the idea of people like you. Does it never occur to you that the supply/demand balance of jobs is not in the favour of a lot of people with common skill sets?

Governments exist exactly to protect people who would otherwise be screwed by all out competition. Here's a great example of a group being screwed, now the law is helping them. This is exactly how it's meant to work.

Governments exist exactly to protect people who would otherwise be screwed by all out competition.

Hmm....I'm thumbing through my US Constitution and I'm having a very difficult time finding within the limited, enumerated privileges and responsibilities of the Federal Govt. where this is listed as one of its jobs as you stated it to be.....

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.[emphasis added]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.[emphasis added]

That could happen, but the more likely outcome is that people who had the skill set to fend off barbarian hordes (perhaps a band of barbarians who tired of the nomadic life) came in and offered the locals a choice: give us a bunch of your stuff every year and we'll fight off any other barbarians who wander by, or don't, in which case we will use the standard procedure of killing all the men, making concubines of the women, and selling the children into slavery.

dunno how it makes harder to be an ACTUAL REAL CONTRACTOR when amazon terms for a 'contractor' are ANYTHING BUT contractor terms - it just makes you an employee that has been tied to the company just as much as with regular 'job' but you don't get benefits of the 'job'.

a contractor could do other delivery jobs too.

"other jobs to be had and no one is holding a gun to your head to work for this employer." THATS RIGHT, A FUCKING EMPLOYER! that's the entire fucking point, they're employees!

This ruins things for all the people that DO like and prefer the contractor paradigm.

What are you getting your knickers so twisted about, if your concern is valid and this is an example of contractor work then the courts will rule that way.

If it turns out this is an example of a company classifying people who are de facto employees as contractors to get away from their obligations to employees then your talk about paradigms isn't valid. If I can only work for one firm, have fixed hours and duties, and mu

Says someone who has obviously never been down on their luck. Sure don't take the job, lose your home, end up on the doll, get yelled at by ass hats like the parent for not taking the first job that comes along.

Unless things have drastically changed in the past decade, not really. FedEx had to deal with the contractor issue when they picked up RPS and Viking, I believe, as a good number of their drivers were independent drivers (in that these drivers could then subcontract their "routes" to other folks). I don't think this applied to actual delivery drivers, only route drivers (from station to station not station to business), but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, when RPS was rolled into FedEx (and turned i

I was working at the college bookstore warehouse when my boss quit his job to become a contract driver for RPS in the early 1990's. He was much happier being outside the warehouse, driving around and meeting new people. His route was from the station to businesses. Every once in a while he would stop by to deliver packages when the regular driver was off.

It can vary from state to state also. States generally grant additional rights to real employees. From how you describe it, I'd say they were employees even though FedEx disagrees. The reason to make them contractors is to avoid legal hassles, keep health insurance costs down, have someone else to pass the blame to.

I know someone who's a contractor, working for several companies at once, and a few of his employers have gone the route of only hiring contractors through temp agencies to avoid law suits. T

"So when you hire a plumber to fix a leak in your house, you want that plumber to be your employee?"

Are you fucking dense? I *HIRED* them to do a job. Yes, they are my employee.

"What if you hire a plumber to fix a leak in your business?"

If the plumbing fucks up in any unreasonable amount of time, they have a warranty or guarantee. That makes them MY EMPLOYEE but only by specific terms which must be met in order to invoke the ability to call upon said employee for service.

Are you paying payroll tax, are you paying their Social Security taxes. Medicare? No, you are doing none of those when you hire a plumber. So either you are in a lot of trouble with the IRS or the plumber is a contractor. Take your pick

The most important one is: "6) The nature and degree of control by the employer. Analysis of this factor includes who sets pay amounts and work hours and who determines how the work is performed, as well as whether the worker is free to work for others and hire helpers"

If the allegations are true, Amazon sets the hours, sets the pay, requires uniforms and interacts only with individuals. That makes the workers misclassified employees, not independent contractors.

Workers who have to work at specific times at specific places, perform specific employer-required tasks to accomplish a job, and wear specific clothing are likely to be classed as employees.
More so, if the contract requires the person personally do the work, rather than a project they have been awarded, that they can hire subcontractors or employees to complete.

Moreso, if the company pays for expenses, such as trucks, fuel or tools, or reimburses the employee, and/or provides benefits typical of an employer, such as retirement, or other personal benefits as a portion of pay.

The structure of the arrangement.

But for employment law and tax purposes:

Behavioral: Does company have any control what worker does and how worker does his or her job? Employers control employees work conditions. Contractors have wide latitude in how they get the work done, for example, they can hire one or more employees to complete the work.

Financial: Are the business aspects of the job controlled by the company? For example: Who covers the expense of vehicle, tools, etc, when and how does the worker get paid?

Business Relationship: Are there contracts, or employee-like benefits (e.g. insurance, vacation)? Is the work performed a key aspect of the business, and is this a continuing relationship?

It isn't a big deal...you just have to put on your Big Boy pants and know how to negotiate a bill rate.

The difference between contractor and employee?

Contractors have to pay their own social security(none paid by employer)not eligible to same workers comp benefits if injured, not eligible for unemployment, when laid off, don't get access to employer matched 401k...the list goes on.

Again, no big deal, this is one of the reasons contractors have MUCH higher bill rates than W2 employees. You figure this int

Again, no big deal, this is one of the reasons contractors have MUCH higher bill rates than W2 employees. You figure this into the bill rate.

Which gets eaten up by the costs that a proper (read: non-agency) employer would be able to offset due to economies of scale. Strike 1.

As for retirement, you can set up IRA's or something like a solo 401K and load it up with money pre-tax....

Which also gets a lower standing versus conventional 401k's and pension agreements. In addition, the *SA's promote lower quality of care in the name of "consumerism".

These days...a W2 employee gets pretty much no loyalty from the company, nor any true stability...so, I figure if you're gonna be treated like a contractor, you might as well get the BILL RATE of a contractor.

As stated above, your expenses and health care options make it a worse-off option. You get none of the economies of scale, none of the stability, all of the risk, all of the hassle, and no net reward.

The agency arrangement should be outlawed-- a sub-contracting arrangement can never pass the smell test unless subs can truly negotiate rates.

That said, if you make $70-150k per year being an independent contract can be great-- $50k into a 401k with only $2k in social security on it, no income tax; claiming all other expenses pre-tax; home office deductions... Over $150k the benefits still exist, but they shift to different areas.

How about applying RTW's concept of "not as a condition of accepting work" to agencies? Instead of being cost-dodgers, they would end up having to deliver competitive advantages to a high-security default. It would also serve as a good test of whether people are really wanting one form of work or another.

Take that piece and use it to break the idea of having to go through an agency to get work - but to be able to choose without penalty or intimidation.

You are the employer with a solo plan; you put in $17k as income deferral, another $17k as employer match, and up to $17k in profit sharing. It is great if you have a two-income family where you can live off the other salary.

My wife makes about $60k, and pays $3k in taxes and fees per year, $10k going to various expenses, and the rest straight to 401k. If the money was W2 take-home would be optimistically $10k with $17k in a 401k (if eligible; if not just $25k...)

Contractors are not protected by the EEOC. You heard me right, it is OK by the federal government to discriminate against contractors, as in I had an EEOC worker specifically tell me they would do nothing for me because I was a contractor, not an employee.

When the firm chooses the assignments as well as the method, as Amazon is doing here, then they're no longer contracting. They're employing.

Your logic would mean that virtually every temp, as soon as the company that brought them in tells them what to do and how to do it, they instantly cease being temps and become full-time employees of the firm they are temporarily working for?

That's simply wrong - I can't believe you think this is correct, I have to believe you've come down with a severe case of Amazon D

"You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed."

It's amazing to me that Amazon attempted this since it's very well settled law.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS99/rpt/olr/htm/99-R-0775.htm

http://archive.washtech.org/news/courts/display.php?ID_Content=381

It can't be the case that any of Amazon's lawyers approved this arrangement; they all would have argued strongly against it. What that implies is this is coming direclty from Fear'd Pirate Bezeo's own hand.

Amazon's board would be derelict if they didn't look into this most seriously. It calls into question Jefe's

Independent contractors most certainly can be forced to use and buy uniforms. If the contract says "provide service X while wearing uniform Y" and you accept the contract you most certainly are required to wear uniform Y. Just like a contractor can be required to use specific materials for a job.

A contract can also require when a job is done, such as "paint the walls of our building using [specific brand and color code] paint, work will be performed after hours between 5PM and 8AM, to be completed by November 15th 2015.

The difference between a contractor and an employee is rooted in the negotiation and powers of the parties.

If the worker answers to a boss for day to day instructions, has little or no say in the compensation level, is contractually prevented from working for others, paid on a regular time basis and is scheduled by the employer then they are pretty much sure to be considered an employee.

If the worker is just required to meet deadlines, is paid by the job, has freedom to work elsewhere, and freedom to hire their own help then they are generally going to be considered an independent contractor.

A contractor cannot be fired. They can lose the job if they fail to meet the terms of the contract, but for the length of that contract they are not susceptible to the whims of a grumpy PHB, and the contractor has the same right to initiate a breach of contract suit as the company who hired them.

The grey areas that are showing up in recent class actions are pretty much all the result of companies wanting to avoid the responsibilities of employees, such as unemployment insurance, workers comp, disability, etc, but wanting to regulate the worker/customer interface to preserve a consistent corporate image.

Because these are large corporations contracting individuals to a large extent the contractor does not have any power of negotiation, the corporation writes the contract, and contractors can take it or leave it. This does introduce a bias against the independent contractor classification.

I think in many of these cases the workers will win, because the company is really trying to say "you don't work for me, but you have to represent me in a strictly defined way".

If a company really wanted to do this with contractors the right way they could write a contract that regulated the workers as strictly as they wanted, then put the contract out for bid. This would shift the negotiation power toward the worker, let them name their own price, but it would also cost the company a lot more money, because people bidding on a contract are either going to name a price that actually reflects their money/time investment, or if they grossly underbid to get the job, they will not be able to actually fulfill the contract requirements.

An actual example:

Your mailman is a government employee, benefits, insurance, the whole kit and caboodle. In rural areas he is actually required to provide his own vehicle, but is an employee.

The truck that takes your mail between sorting centers is probably an independent contractor. That particular contract has pretty strict time requirements, and a bunch of hoops to jump through (after all, it is a government contract) but the government is not concerned about that contractor representing them, because they do not interact with the customer. The contractor provides and maintains the equipment, hires their own drivers, and bids competitively to get the contract every time it comes to an end. They run some pretty ratty trucks sometimes. I have seen U.S. Mail painted on trailers that have other logos just painted over, being pulled by tractors that look like they were purchased third hand.

If the contractor underbids the job he will either suck it up and lose money (if they have the capital to do that) or will be forced to break the contract.

But any way you look at it a contract can be so specific as to specify the brand of toothpaste the contractor uses. The specificity of the contract is not the primary differentiator between the employee and contractor classification

A truck driving from DEPO A to DEPO B is one thing and a real 1099 Trucker is free to use what even CAB they want as well being free to make any side loads / run as long as they make it on time also they are free to sub the work out as well. But something doing a FedEx depo to home / office runs is not a real 1099 worker.

Goolge fiber and the cable co's miss use 1099's workers. They control the pay, the number of jobs each day, the rules, some times make you buy / rent / use there truck.

A contract can also require when a job is done, such as "paint the walls of our building using [specific brand and color code] paint, work will be performed after hours between 5PM and 8AM,

To be clear, they can state that you can only work between 5pm and 8am but they wouldn't be able to dictate that you in fact show up every day between 5pm and 8am as long as you complete the work within that time frame before the deadline unless it was necessary for some other specific contractual reason.

Reply to: I'm a regular Prime Now customer... And I'm shocked that Amazon ever through they could call these people ICs.

Then vote with your wallet and cancel your prime account. It's not going to make much difference, sure, but hey, it's better than being part of the problem. I have a personal blacklist of a few businesses that I avoid using unless there's really no other choice (one doesn't need to be insane about it---just make them the last place to look).

Why should Amazon care? Nobody is going to stop shopping there. People just want their cheap shit, and don't care who they do business with. If most people could save $0.50 buying their toilet paper from known child rapists, they would.

Why should Amazon care? Nobody is going to stop shopping there. People just want their cheap shit, and don't care who they do business with. If most people could save $0.50 buying their toilet paper from known child rapists, they would.

Uber, Lyft, Amazon Prime, etc. There's bound to be a lot more of these flexible jobs in the future that fall somewhere between contract work and shift work, this suit is likely to result in some important precedents.

If most people could save $0.50 buying their toilet paper from known child rapists, they would.

Sociopaths usually assume that most other people are also sociopaths. This [slashdot.org] says you're wrong.

Indeed. I choose to shop at Costco rather than Sam's Club, even though Sam's Club locations are much more convenient and slightly cheaper, because Costco treats their employees well and Sam's Club doesn't. I want to live in a world where my neighbors are well paid and well treated, not one where they are poor and needy. I can't change the whole world, but I can and do vote with my wallet.

A case based on one poor anecdotal example, and a half-arsed ad-hominem, thanks for sharing your insight...

If he was wrong, and you were right, then a story about a company paying all its employees well wouldn't be news and a story about a company paying it staff poorly would be shocking and it doesn't take a genius to see that isn't how things are.

The IRS defines who is a contractor and who is an employee. A contractor is not under the supervision or command of an employer. For example if you agree to be a delivery contractor the hours that you work are up to you, the clothing you wear is up to you etc.. The most usual case is in phone sales or so-called telemarketing where the employer provides a desk, a phone, leads or hours of access to the phones or regulates the break or meal periods of the so-called contractor. If any of those things exi

Amazon is not the only company under fire under the Contractors rules. Many that sue win because the labor rules which have been in place a long time are pretty straight forward. Read them here at the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-EmployeeI can't stand a company making as much money as Amazon makes that feels the need to steal money from American workers. Now you can argue that we have enough rules in place and this Fed ru

No. There are set laws that companies are required to follow. You telling them to not take the job would be the equivalent of some guy driving his car on the sidewalk, and you advising somebody wanting to walk on that sidewalk that they should just use another sidewalk that the car isn't driving on.

Then I suggest you write your congressman to have the employment laws abolished. As stated several times before, if you're unhappy with a law, there is an institutional way of fixing it. If the laws are clearly that detrimental to society's best interests, then they'll -likely- be struck down. If you ARE living in the society, follow the damn law!

That said, I believe employment laws are necessary to protect the rights of the many from the people who would legally and morally reduce the cost of operations as

so, all businesses get together and say that they'll pay you a buck a day oh and you need to breathe asbestos without a mask, because we ain't paying for that shit. Oh, and if you don't like that job? go get another. But it will have the same requirements.

Seems fake? no, things were kind of like this in the early 1900s. Oh and if you complained there was a nonzero chance of you getting killed. Unions and work laws didn't come out of nowhere. They came out of abuses where companies used their large power as leverage. If you have thousands of people applying for a handful of jobs at amazon fulfillment centers where you do nothing but walk all day carrying heavy stuff just so maybe you can be one of the 10% that get full-time jobs, the "purchasing power" of labor is pretty weak. Saying "just go get another job" ignores this.

When corporations do illegal stuff, we oddly don't say "go get another line of work" and make the banks that financed drug lords start selling oranges by the side of the road. But for some reason people are expected to.

Contractors set their own desired hours or work, FYI. I set my hours today from 8AM-5PM. Tomorrow, they'll be 8PM-4PM, ENTIRELY MY DECISION. The company or entity that hired me has no real say in that.